Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart [Paperback]

Marc Bekoff (Author), Jane Goodall (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 2003

In Minding Animals, Marc Bekoff takes us on an exhilarating tour of the emotional and mental world of animals, where we meet creatures who do amazing things and whose lives are filled with mysteries.
Following in the footsteps of Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen, Bekoff has spent the last 30 years studying animals of every stripe--from coyotes in Wyoming to penguins in Antarctica. He draws on this vast experience, as well as on the observations of other naturalists, to offer readers fascinating stories of animal behavior, including grooming and gossip, feeding patterns, dreaming, dominance, and mating behavior. He offers a thought-provoking look at animal cognition, intelligence, and consciousness and he presents vivid examples of animal passions, highlighting the deep emotional lives of our animal kin. All this serves as background for his thoughtful conclusions about humility and animal protection and animal well-being, where he urges a new paradigm of respect, grace, compassion, and love for all animals.
Minding Animals is an important contribution to our understanding of animal consciousness, a major work that will be a must read for anyone who loves nature.
"To find out about the rich emotional life of nonhuman species, read Minding Animals."---Natural History

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Bekoff is an ethologist: a scientist who studies animal behavior. In this new look at the consciousness of animals, he shares his experiences along with the nitty-gritty details of how animal behaviorists make their living. But Bekoff goes beyond a mere description of the science of ethology. He also tackles bigger issues, such as the questions of animal cognition, intelligence, and their emotional lives. Chapters cover such broad topics as the richness of behavioral diversity, animal emotions, play and cooperation, and human intrusion into animals' lives. Bekoff has a talent for making his points by leading readers through the evidence for and against an issue and guiding them to a conclusion. Interweaving anecdotal stories, discussions of scientific research, and explorations into the philosophy and theology of our relationship with nature and other animals, Bekoff builds a case for the necessity of understanding animals and granting them mutual respect as "other persons." The conversational writing style makes for a highly accessible book. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"To find out about the rich emotional life of nonhuman species, read Minding Animals."--Natural History

"Bekoff does a wonderful job showing the reader how learning and understanding and 'minding' animals and their behavior lead to recognition of their feelings as well. Using both his vast knowledge of animals and the observations made by other naturalists, Bekoff illustrates the minds, hearts, spirits and souls of the animal kingdom."--Biology Digest

"Interweaving anecdotal stories, discussions of scientific research, and explorations into the philosophy and theology of our relationship with nature and other animals, Bekoff builds a case for the necessity of understanding animals and granting them mutual respect as 'other persons.' The conversational writing style makes for a highly accessible book."--Booklist

"With this abundant narrative of Marc Bekoff a new age of intimacy between humans and animals has begun. The companionship, the play, the healing, the guidance, the protection provided by the animals, all these will be needed in the future as never before. Everyone should read Minding Animals, an amazingly thorough, delightful, and most important book." --Thomas Berry, author of The Dream of the Earth and The Great Work

"For those of us who have immersed ourselves in the well being of life forms other than human, the fact that they communicate and have feelings is as natural and understandable as breathing. Through this lens we see clearly how their well being is intricately interconnected with our own. In Minding Animals Marc Bekoff has done a wonderful job of showing us how learning to understand and 'mind' animals and their behavior leads us to recognize their feelings as well. Through their layers, we find even more richness and joy of life as we glimpse into ever deeper parts of ourselves. This book is fun, inspiring, thought-provoking and educational! What a great mix!" --Julia Butterfly Hill, author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 26, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195163370
• ISBN-13: 978-0195163377
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Appreciating Animals Minds, May 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart (Hardcover)

Marc Bekoff's Minding Animals offers us a unique look into the wonderful and diverse minds of animals. All too often we glaze over true animal emotions and feelings because society has wanted us to believe animals are a lesser developed species than humans. That animals are not able to demonstrate traits thought only to be "human." However, Bekoff's book and his previous publications clearly demonstrate how terribly wrong and simple this is. Animals posses deep and unique minds capable of endless emotions, thoughts and actions. Simply because humans are not capable of understanding the animal mind in terms that can be communicated does not mean the animal mind does not exist. A serious flaw (one of many) in human nature is to discount unknown possibilities. It is unimaginable to us today that the great astronomer Galileo was persecuted for saying the Earth rotated around the Sun or that Christopher Columbus said the world was round. Even the youngest children know these facts today. Nobody knew how closely related we were to the chimpanzee until a young British woman named Jane Goodall went to Africa only 40 years ago and discovered the distinct behaviors of chimpanzees, such as tool use, communication and social bonding to mention just a few.

Readers of Minding Animals will come across stories they have also experienced with animals and learn new stories that will help them appreciate all animals even more. Bekoff's book allows us to enjoy and appreciate animals that are not lesser beings, but animals that live their own unique lives and add something special to our own lives and the plant.

48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imagine what we'll know tomorrow, May 23, 2002

By 

"michaeleve" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart (Hardcover)

This is of course based on the premise that we know animals are not sentient, don't have emotions, and that there is no such thing as animal culture. Stick-a-pin. This is no different than our most recent scientific truth. We knew for a fact that once we read the Human Genome and identified its 100,000 to 140,000 genes we would be able to confirm our unique complexity. Wait a minute. We did that already, right? And how many genes do we have? Try between 30,000 to 35,000. Now ponder this: the functions for over a half of our discovered genes remains unknown. As I said, imagine what we'll "know" tomorrow. I believe that shortly we will confirm that animals have a vibrant and adaptable culture, a rich emotional life, and consciously communicate among themselves and are self-aware. I give it 25 years. Certainly within a generation there will be a new paradigm that most naturalists will be operating with, and science such as Bekoff's won't be seen as "anecdotal", "folk-tales", "pop-culture", or radical anthropomorphism.

Cognitive ethology (the study of animal intelligence) is a young science and like so many newer studies it has its fair share of critics. Interestingly much of the criticism comes from within other current fields of study (sociobiology and evolutionary psychology for example). Bekoff tackles these issues head on and if you have read a little in this field you'll know that this means engaging some of our brightest thinkers - Daniel C Dennett, E.O Wilson, Marc Hauser, Noam Chomsky. A lot of the debate about animal intelligence centers on language and communication. Primatologists such as Jane Goodall and Franz de Waal, like Bekoff, tend to argue that human capacity for language is an inappropriate criteria for determining animal intelligence.

This is an overly simplified summary of Bekoff's field of study and his explanations are much clearer. The book however is much more than a scientific primer on cognitive ethology. No longer does naming animals, loving them, and anthropomorphizing detract from the scientific study of their behavior. Bekoff shows that by MINDING ANIMALS scientists are able to get fascinating insights into behavior. Stories here about dreaming rats, thinking bees, and happy elephants, far from being anecdotal, are now shedding new light onto behavior such as grooming, dominance, mating, and feeding.

It was less than twenty years ago that it was discovered that elephants communicated by ultrasound and only recently did we find out that African Grey parrots understand concepts such as size, color, shape, and can compare and contrast items. Enjoy this fascinating read and then just imagine...

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A theoretical masterpiece -, September 22, 2005

By 

Kate Nicoll "of Soul Friends" (Wallingford,CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart (Hardcover)

This book does a wonderful job explaining a theoretical basis for animal emotions, while also sharing examples that warm the heart and provide concrete evidence for the basis of the work. Chapter are well-organized and there is a consistent thread of science, heart, mind and purpose throughout the book. This is the kind of theoretical book with feeling that would have kept me fascinated in college.
Kate Nicoll, MSW of Soul Friends